USCI's look at "The Future of U.S. - China Relations"

What does China’s rise mean for the United States?

International conference launches new USC institute focusing
on U.S. – China relations

April 19, 2007, Los Angeles

What:         1. “The Future of U.S. – China Relations” conference features 25
                        distinguished scholars examining the multidimensional and
                        evolving U.S. – China relationship.

                        Topics:    State to State Relations in a Changing Economic Environment

                                       Prospects for Political Reform

                                       Social and Economic Disparity
                                       Energy and Environmental Concerns
                                       Cultural and Intellectual Trends                     

      2. Herbert G. Klein Lecture by Ambassador J. Stapleton Roy

When:     Conference   

   Friday, April 20, 2007: 9:30 am – 5 pm

               Saturday, April 21, 2007: 9 am – 2:30 pm

               Klein Lecture

               Friday, April 21, 2007: 6 – 7:30 pm

Where:  USC Davidson Conference Center

   USC University Park Campus
    Enter gate 3, Figueroa, south of Jefferson
    Directions available at:

            http://www.usc.edu/about/visit/upc/driving_directions

Who:      USC U.S. – China Institute

               Website: china.usc.edu

               Phone: 213-821-4382 / Fax: 213-821-2382

               Complete speaker list below.

The United States is the world’s lone superpower. China is a rising great power. The relationship between the two will do much to shape the 21^st century. Tomorrow and Saturday, USC’s new U.S. – China Institute hosts a penetrating and multidimensional look at U.S. – China relations and at the massive changes in China which are likely to affect that relationship. The conference is completely sold out, but media representatives are still welcome. Call 213-821-4382 to attend.

The outlines of China’s remarkable economic rise are well-known (from producing 1/20^th of the world’s goods and services in 1980 to producing 1/6^th of those goods and services in 2006). What is less understood is that growth continues at a rapid rate. China will become the world’s top exporter in 2008 and is turning out not just textiles and toys, but computer equipment and cars. China’s automobile production passed the U.S.’s in 2006. In part, American and other investors are driving this growth. Foreign direct investment in China has risen from nil in 1983 to over $60 billion in 2006. And American consumers have done more than their share. In 2006, we imported $233 billion dollars more in goods and services than we exported to China.

This economic success has helped China accumulate the $1.2 trillion in foreign reserves, the most in the world. Some of these funds are now being invested in other countries. In 2006, Chinese firms purchased $11 billion in foreign assets. Of course, only Congressional outcry prevented a Chinese oil company, CNOOC, from purchasing El Segundo-based Unocal for $19 billion in 2005.

Enormous internal migration has enabled the staffing of factories and mines. Perhaps 200 million Chinese have left their village homes for the cities, the largest movement of people in world history. This has divided families and generated child care, education, health care, occupational safety, and many other challenges. China’s health care system was credited with amazing achievements in reducing infant mortality, controlling most infectious diseases, and increasing life expectancy. That system is now failing in many ways, just as China’s HIV/AIDS crisis deepens and number of elderly Chinese swells. In less than 10 years, China will have 150 million people over 65. It is the first nation to “go gray before it goes green,” that is, the first nation to rapidly age before it becomes affluent.

Tremendous problems confront the Chinese. Corruption, underemployment, escalating energy needs, and environmental degradation are among these. To highlight two of these, China’s appetite of imported oil is growing (it’s already the second largest importer, after the U.S.) and China is on a pace to surpass the U.S. in 2009 as the largest producer of carbon dioxide emissions (the main gas linked to global warming).

Along with these massive economic and demographic changes, the expansion of telecommunications (more than 300 million Chinese have cell phones and at least 150 million Chinese are logging in to the internet) and greater openness has permitted people in China with greater access to diverse news and entertainment. The government has sought to control the flow of information and the range of debate, through traditional coercive means and also using new technologies, including technologies supplied by American and other firms.

In an effort to increase its flexibility, the Communist Party-led state has experimented with reforms, including village-level elections. The leadership is sensitive to the widening social and economic disparities and has launched campaigns to “put people first,” to develop the relatively poor Western regions of China and to build a “harmonious socialist society.”

To explore these changes and to debate what they mean for the U.S. – China relations, the USC U.S. – China Institute has brought together more than twenty of the leading scholars and policy-makers working on China. We anticipate a lively discussion and hope you can attend.

Contacts:        Clayton Dube, mailto:cdube@usc.edu / 213-821-3936
                        Linda Truong, mailto:lntruong@usc.edu / 213-821-4382

List of presentations and speaker biographies available at the USCI website:

china.usc.edu

Speakers:

Ambassador J. Stapleton Roy – Keynote Address (Friday, 6 – 7:30 pm)

Geremie Barmé (Australia National University)

Carolyn Cartier (University of Southern California)

Warren Cohen (University of Maryland)

Lowell Dittmer (UC Berkeley)

David Dollar (World Bank) – paper presented, not able to attend

June Teufel Dreyer (University of Miami)

Elizabeth Economy (Council on Foreign Relations)

Richard Louis Edmonds (University of Chicago)

C. Cindy Fan (UCLA)

Edward Friedman (University of Wisconsin)

Merle Goldman (Boston University)

Guo Liang (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)

C. Anderson Johnson (USC)

Harry Harding (Eurasia Group)

Eric Heikkila (USC)

Daniel Lynch (USC)

Andrew Nathan (Columbia)

Kevin O’Brien (UC Berkeley)

William Overholt (RAND)

Stanley Rosen (University of Southern California)

Orville Schell (UC Berkeley)

Wang Shaoguang (Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Zhao Suisheng (University of Denver)

David Zweig (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)